Only A Dreamer
by kikki.k
Summary: Alexa has got it hard. Forced to do everything her step parents say, she is contantly mistreated. One day, she makes a wish to the stars, begging for it to go away. The next day, things have certainly changed, but are all of the changes necessarily for the better? ‘Sometimes what you wish for, just isn’t meant to be’


**Hey peeps! This is my first FanFiction, and I'm super excited for it! I'm going to try to go at one chapter a month, give or take, but that is definitely a goal for me. Also, if you're wondering, I'm gonna start each chapter off with an inspirational quote, just to get you thinking. Anyways, don't wanna keep you waiting. Read on!**

 ** _'When it rains, look for rainbows. When it's dark, look for stars.'_**

 **ALEXA P.O.V**

The rain pours down outside, and I stare intently out into the night sky. I carefully prise my 'bedroom' window (if you could call the dusty old attic a bedroom) open and I let the cool winter breeze circle around me. I stick my arm out, and I feel the rain slowly beginning to go away.

With great caution, I manage to slip out through the window (I have a rather slim body figure) and I balance on the roof. I look down, which is a massive mistake, especially if your step parents are ridiculously rich and own a 4 storey mansion. I walk gracefully over to a small step ladder which I keep on the roof so I can access the very top part of the roof. I gingerly climb up the rungs, before reaching the very top, which I call my 'Hideout', and I lie down on the flat the roof and I stare up into the stars. I spot my Zodiac Sign constellation, Cancer. It shimmers in the night sky, and I can't help but smile. There is hope in every problem, because hope is the only thing stronger than fear. Hope is the only thing I hold onto, especially when I face my step parents. I grimace as I remember the massive temper my step mum has, and how dangerous my step father is when he is extremely angry. I frown for the slightest of moments, before I spot Cancer again.

Hope.

I suppose it's all I've got.

The next morning, I quickly clamber back into the attic. It's 3am, and I don't dare to be late to clean the house. It usually takes me around 5 minutes to clean each room, and because there are 58 rooms, it usually takes me around 5 hours to clean. That leaves me with about half an hour to run to school, or if I'm lucky, one of my best friends, Kieran and Tamara, might pick me up somewhere halfway or so. I slip on my school uniform, which consists of a white blouse, a red, plaid tie, a tartan skirt, black socks (which actually aren't visible) and black combat boots (that is why). I quickly do up my laces and I scurry down the ladder from the attic trapdoor, not eager to be late.

'Alexa, where are you?' a deep voice boomed from the bottom floor. I hurry down 3 flights of stairs before I come face to face with my step father.

'Right here,' I reply, trying to appear nonchalant. He glares down at me.

'Don't get impertinent, Alexa. Now, you know where the cleaning materials are. Get them. Then clean the house. I expect it to be completed before Daina (my step mother) wakes up. Now get to it, girl!' he orders. He throws me a flannel, and points directly to a massive 1 metre by 2 metre painting which turns out to be a self-portrait of himself. Or rather, just his apparently 'charming' face. Huh, now that I think of it, I think they got the size of his head pretty accurate.

'Quit day dreaming, girl, and work!' he half shouts at me. I bite my tongue.

Then I begin to clean.

'Look who finally showed up,' I hear a familiar voice call out to me as I stumble through the front gates of Macedon High. I recently turned thirteen, and I'm in Year 7. I smile as I approach my two best friends, Kieran, the one who called out to me, and Tamara.

Kieran is a social, Instagram sensation, and is the lead cheerleader for our cheerleading squad. She's admittedly pretty with curly blonde hair and sparkling sapphire eyes. Tamara is a sporty chick, who absolutely loves athletics and anything sport. She's got auburn hair and welcoming, dark brown eyes. I, on the other hand, have short, dark brown hair, and intense emerald eyes. I've been told that I'm good at dancing, singing, music, art, basketball and anything academic.

'Jeez, Kieran, go easy on the girl. She probably was held up by her crazy step parents again,' Tamara chided. Kieran shrugged.

'Whatever. Besides, the bell's gonna ring in about 2 minutes. We should head off to our lockers,' she suggests. I nod as we begin to walk to our lockers.

'What do you have for first period again?' Tamara asks.

'Science, with Mr Howard,' I reply. I enter the code to my locker before I swing it open, grabbing science textbooks and exercise books.

'Lucky. You got a fun teacher and class! I'm stuck with Mrs Telinski in Math,' Kieran mutters.

'You know, some Year 9 kid told me that she sleepwalks _and_ sleeptalks. Imagine that. I never knew that every lesson we had with her was while she was asleep! Although, I guess that's just what Maths does to you,' Tamara adds in. We all giggle. It was nice to come back to school after the weekend (which by the way was pure torture) and to be with my friends.

'Hey, Lex, come here,' I hear Kieran call out to me as I struggle to close my locker. I finally slam it shut and I jog over to Kieran and Tamara, who are crouching to inspect a hole at the bottom of one of the walls in the hallway.

'Look,' Tamara whispers, pointing through it. I peer down, and I spot some sort of small creature hiding in the shadows.

'What is it?' I ask.

'No idea. But I wanna find out,' Tamara replies.

'C'mon little guy, we won't hurt you,' Kieran says, attempting to draw the creature out. Very cautiously, the small animal crawls out.

'It's a rat,' I mutter quietly.

'WHAT?!?!' Tamara shrieks, leaping a whole metre clear of the hole. I laugh quietly to myself. Tamara is kinda like me with the whole 'I'm not scared of anything' charade, but just like me, and basically everyone in this whole entire world, she has a fear. Rats. Yeah, I know, right? Rats are basically my roommates.

'It's fine, Tam, it won't kill you. Although, maybe if it has rabies it might,' I taunt teasingly, watching her face go pale. She nervously fingers with the hem of the tartan skirt, trying to seem calm.

'Relax, Tam, Lex is only teasing,' Kieran says. I smile as I reach out and I gently lift up the small rat.

'See? Perfectly harmless,' I say, but I make sure that I don't get any closer to Tamara, just so that she doesn't freak out.

'I am not afraid of rats,' Tamara say indignantly, but she still keeps her distance away from the rat.

'It's fine to have fears, Tamara. Everybody does. Like me, I'm absolutely terrified of spiders. In fact, I actually went to the doctors to investigate this, and they told me that I have arachnophobia,' Kieran comments. I nod.

'Yeah, and I have claustrophobia. Everyone who knows me basically knows that,' I add. Tamara looks at us for a second, before nodding in agreement.

'I suppose you've got a point,' she relents, so she allows herself to take another whole metre away from us and the rat.

'Hey, watch it, loser!' an unfortunately familiar voice shouts as she runs into Tamara. Tamara spins around and comes face to face with her biggest enemy from athletics, Penelope Huff.

'Well, to be fair, you're the one who ran into me,' Tamara retorts. I can see how hard she is trying to cover her anger. Being the most cool headed cool head in the entire school (I learn to control my anger because of my step parents), I decide to step in.

'Look, Penelope, we aren't looking for trouble. Just leave Tamara alone,' I interrupt. Penelope looks at me and sneers.

'Well, well, well, if it isn't Cinderella. Still trying to find your happily ever after?' she smirks cruelly. I flinch. I get used to the nickname 'Cinderella' from bullies at my school, but whenever I hear Penelope say it, it takes me by surprise. I see Penelope hi-5 her two best friends, Riley Pine and Julia Otieko.

'Just leave us alone,' Kieran adds. Blood is beginning to rush to her face, and I already know what happens when Kieran gets angry. Unfortunately, so does Julia, Kieran's rival.

'Why should we, Kieran? Wanna take a selfie with the rat? I'm sure you'd look like twins!' Julia snipes. Kieran bites her lip, using all of her willpower to stop herself from an outrage.

'Just. Go,' she manages, gripping her right arm.

'Fine then. If we're to hard to handle,' Penelope says before the three girls push past Tamara and into the hallway beyond.

'I hate them,' Tamara hissed.

'You ain't the only one,' I say. Right on cue, the bell rings, signally us to head off to our home rooms, where we'll stay for 10 minutes before we go to our different subjects. We quickly hurry to Miss Polidano's classroom. Miss Polidano is by far my most favourite teacher. She's funny, fun, creative and understands everyone. She knows about my 'evil step parents' (gee, I'm more like Cinderella than I thought) and she is super kind to everyone.

'Good morning, class!' her voice rings out as we hurry inside. I rush to my desk, which is in between Kyle Gyre (a really annoying kid who thinks that cringy is the new cool. Seriously, he goes around dabbing on people when they ask for a hi-5 and he says '21' at least 21 times a period) and Olivia Wynter (a super nice girl who is really shy but once you get to know her she is really good fun).

'I have a surprise for all of you, actually,' Miss Polidano begins, pausing to add suspension. We all stare expectantly at her.

'You have a 5 page essay to write!' she announces with fake enthusiasm. Most of the class groans, but are secretly trying to hide smiles.

'Don't be so discouraged, people. You get to write a 5 page essay about yourself! It may be presented in any form, like a narrative, or persuasive, like why people should like you, or any form or fashion you would like to write it in. It will be written on your laptops. This will be done during English, and yes, it will also be homework. How lucky are you!'

'Lucky? How long were your essays when you were in school?' Kyle demands. Miss Polidano looks at him.

'About the same length. But back in my day, (which isn't very long ago considering she's only 24) we didn't have the laptops or IPads or in fact any source of technology to write on. We had to write it by _hand_. Twice, actually, because we had to do a draft first, edit it, then rewrite the whole thing,' Moss Polidano replies. Kyle's jaw drops open, and we stares at her.

'Anyway, moving on, in the 7 minutes we have left, we're going to do a General Knowledge Quiz. The groups will be of 5, and will be determined from the roll order,' Miss Polidano says. We start to mutter with ourselves excitedly as she calls out names into groups. My last name is Zo, so I'm pretty much at the end of the roll, meaning that I'll be with the last five people on the roll, Peter Roy, Danny Sorique, Nile Valles, Olivia Wynter and of course, me.

'Okay, there are 5 subjects: Geography, Science, Art, Sport And History. Left one person in your group for each subject,' Miss Polidano instructs.

'I'll do sport,' Nile says immediately, and nobody argues considering that Nilemis a sport fan.

'I wanna try science,' Peter says, and we all certainly agree with that.

'What do you want to do, Olivia?' I ask her. She shrugs.

'History, Maybe. I like history,' she says. I turn to Danny.

'So, art or geo?' I inquire. He thinks a bit.

'I'll do art. I completely suck at geography,' he decides.

'Yeah, you do,' Peter adds, and they start laughing. I roll my eyes.

'I guess I'm doing geography,' I say.

'Alright, sport first,' Miss Polidano says, so Nile steps forward along with 4 other people from the other groups.

'Okay... Which sport uses nets to carry balls to throw into goals?' she questions.

'Lacrosse,' Nile answers quickly.

'Correct!' Miss Polidano says, placing a tally mark under the heading 'Team 5'.

'Art next!' The art contestants stride forwards.

'Who painted the painting 'The Creation of Adam?'

'Michelangelo,' Freya says, a member from Team 3.

'Correct!' Miss Polidano awards the team with one point.

'Alrighty, I think it's time for some history,' Miss Polidano comments. Olivia steps forward.

'What is the exact date of the last day of the Vietnam War?' Miss Polidano says. Olivia frowns, clearly confused.

'The 30th of April, 1975,' Kieran says, who in in Team 2. She looks at me and her eyes said 'I actually learned something from your constant blabbering'. I roll my eyes. She grins.

'Correct, Kieran! A point to Team 2!' Miss Polidano exclaims. 'Science next!' Peter steps forward.

'How many elements are there in the periodic table?'

'118,' Tamara says, and I curse myself for the science tutoring session I had with her last Friday at lunchtime.

'Correct!' Miss Polidano exclaims. 'A point to Team 1! Okay, now we're up to our final question. Team 1, 2, 3 and 5 each have a point, so Team 4 cannot win, so you guys are eliminated. Rightio, geography contestants from Team 1, 2, 3 and 5, step up!' I stalk forward.

'How many states are there in USA?'

'49!' Tyrus, the geography representive for Team 3, callls out before the question is even over. Miss Polidano looks at him sympathetically.

'Wrong.' Tyrus loos confused, before his face fills with understanding. He opens his mouth to answer once again, but I beat him to it.

'50,' I answer. Miss Polidano pauses, adding suspense, before she smiles.

'Correct!' Team 5 wins!' she announces, and my team goes crazy.

'Okay, Team 5, you get to throw water balloons at the other teams at the end of the day!' Miss Polidano announces, and we start cheeering again while the other teams kind of just stare in surprise at Miss Polidano.

'Okay, hurry off to your next subjects!' Miss Polidano instructs, so we gather our equipment for our next class.

'Good job, Lex. Don't kill me with the water balloons, though,' Kieran congratulates me as we walk in the hallway.

'Sorry, Kieran, I can't make any promises,' I reply. She pulls a face, and Tamara laughs. We split up as we head off to our next classes.

I smile as I enter the science classroom, mentally preparing myself for another wacky and explosive lesson.

 _Why can't life be this fun every day, no matter where we are, or who we're with?_

 **Thanks for reading, peeps! Hopefully I'm gonna have a new chapter next January. Also, I decided that I'm gonna leave two questions off for each chapter, one for the chapter ending (which will be the thought of the person's point of view) and one for you, my lovely readers, to answer.**

 **Anyway, have a merry Christmas filled with happiness and joy, and all the best for the New Year.**

 **QUESTION: Should I do a chapter or part of a chapter in someone else's point of view? If so, who?**


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